Fancy a nice MIL thread? I need some coping strategies..

[MirandaGoshawk]

MIL is coming to visit next week. She is a snooty piece and I've never been good enough for her DH. Last time she came it was her first visit to this house and she swept through, eagle eye glinting, pronouncing on our home.

The problem is that DH does have a bit of a whinge about it every now & then, but we can't afford The Old Vicarage, and I really like it here. We haven't had a penny off her for it, so why should she pronounce? It's not her taste. But I don't want her bloody opinions.

She floored me with her comment that I didn't have any ornaments! I have a few, but obviously not enough for her approval. Also that we shouldn't have let DS choose his bedroom carpet & wall colour (doesn't match rest of house). And we haven't got a rug in the kitchen (DH would like one, I don't want to cover the tiles).

After DH had a whinge a while back, she rang & told me she thinks I ought to put it on the market. I told her I'd do that if I found somewhere I liked more. But we can't afford better without taking on a bigger mortgage, which I don't want to do.

How can I handle this? I don't want her to get to me.

Oh, and don't get me started on the campaign to replace "those nasty old sash windows with some nice modern UpVC."

Seriously. This is not about yours being snooty, it's about her being a disrespectful mare. Your house, your taste, your rules. You could always mention how much you despise materialism and pretension in modern home ownership and how painfully arriviste middle-class Hyacinth Bucket you find it if she really drives you nuts....

Anniegetyourgun what a lovely thing to say about your son and your dil. Makes a change to hear something like this on MIL threads, but then sometimes we seem to forget we are mothers as well a MILs don't we. I sometimes try to put a possibly different perspective on some MIL threads and have got walloped for it many a time by a gang of dils! Mind this one sounds an absolute horror doesn't she.

Hi diddl usually meet up on a MIL thread don't we though haven't noticed you for ages, or maybe not so many MIL threads.

"The problem is that DH does have a bit of a whinge about it every now & then"

So what is he doing about it?

I don't understand the rug in the kitchen? Like a wipey feety mat at the kitchen sink is it? Hardly a big wool rug plonked randomly on the floor?

My FIL is exactly like this, it is simply because he fails to comprehend that 'his' way is not necessarily everyone's choice - if he chooses to, say, have a certain setup in his home then it can only be because that is the very best way to have it (ignoring that fact that it may not suit everyone).

I deal with it through a mixture of humour and faux humility regarding how much we can afford, have capacity to deal with.

But the rugs in the kitchen - YABU! I have a couple of rugs over my tiles. One at the sink/cooker end which saves me from slipping on spillages and one at the door end (but I live on a very muddy farm, dorrmats just don't do it!)

I have something like this although not those colours and it chucks in the washing machine - surely not too weird?!!

Bingo... Play comments bingo... write down several comments you think she will say on a grid... award yourself a prize for a completed row/column/all the corners each square. hide it in the back of the wardrobe and tick off the boxes as she says them.

YouCant... ha ha, that's it. There is only one way of doing things, the correct way, their way. So it follows that if anyone does it differently they are wrong!

blackeyedsusan that's a good idea, it sounds like the bigot bingo that we play when a certain elderly relative comes to visit. You know, immigrants taking our jobs, mothers going out to work etc. etc. but we never win because there are always new ones!

PIL can't stand the way we've decorated the bedroom. I suspect they think it looks like a whore's bordello. It has a red and cream theme, including a dark red carpet (don't buy one, shows every fucking bit of dust). However, they're far too polite to say and restrain themselves to the odd cats bum mouth when the door is open.

The too polite to say comes from them commenting without holding back when we were choosing houses. They told DH I should 'grow up' when I expressed a preference for a period house with timber windows. They also kept going on about quite normal semis being 'cramped' because they weren't detached houses on an open plan estate.

DH, quite rightly, told them in no uncertain terms to butt out and put the phone down. They must have really pissed him off as he hates confrontation.

Since then, not a whisper.

So OP, challenge her the old bat.

Udderly - the rug is a big grey thing that covers most of the floor. I think its purpose is to a) keep feet off the (allegedly) cold tiles, b) save anything that falls from breaking and c) get the dog's mucky paw prints. But it looks grubby, has stains on it and I hate it.

Well, things do break if I drop them, but I'm prepared to put up with that in order not to have a rug. We wear slippers so cold floor not a problem, and I have an efficient back door mat for the dog. But mainly, I like the tiles & find them more efficient to wipe/sweep clean than dragging out the hoover all the time. DH wheedles for a rug every now & then because he's told the floor is cold, but luckily forgets about it fairly quickly.

MissMarjori lol I bet they're envious of your boudoir, & can't help imagining what you & DH get up to in there! What a great idea... >

Your ILS sound snooty too.

I hate confontation to. I will try to just ignore but there may well come a time when I explode, and that'll be it for the veneer of liking her & her liking me. I know that she was overjoyed when DH & I split up briefly so we both fake it.

too, not to.

They're very upright religious pillar of the community types, Miranda. They can't see beyond their ideal. Which a totally characterless house, decorated entirely in shades of beige. But you know, their equally repressed friends would approve of beige. They wouldn't approve of red.

Dear God! Why didn't they just carpet it altogether >